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Thursday, August 2, 2012

7000 Kinds of Amphibians!

Not the Peruvian glassfrog, because its photo
is copyrighted.
This is a paperweight frog posing on my carpet.

In celebration of the discovery of the 7000th species of amphibian on our big round wet ball o' Earth, here's a song guaranteed to knock "Call Me Maybe" right out of your noggin: "7000 Kinds of Amphibians" by the Wiggly Tendrils. Who keeps track of all those critters? AmphibiaWeb is doing the counting.

And which one is the 7000th? A glassfrog in Peru, Centrolene sabini.

And doesn't that make you feel good--to know that frogs and toads and newts and salamanders are still being discovered?

I'd like to know more about the discovery process. "Oops, there's a new frog" or one frog tells another frog who bellows to a scientist and hops off in a new direction indicating to the scientist to follow him to see the newest neighbor...or scientists just keep looking. All in all, pretty amazing.

In my long-legged life...

I have done all but one of these things:
*** left the White House in the back of a paddy wagon
*** studied dolphins in the Florida keys
*** dislocated my knee in the rigging of a topsail schooner
*** been arrested in Peru for piracy
*** learned tapdance from Rusty Frank
*** been a Girl Scout leader
*** chained myself to harpoon guns on whaling ships to prevent them from killing whales
*** stood inside an active volcano
*** shared an office with Jesus Christ
*** danced the hula in front of 50,000 at Aloha Stadium
*** steered a 146 foot trawler through the Panama Canal
*** lived on a commune in Tennessee
*** discussed shoes in sign language with a chimpanzee ***written 6 books, including the award-winning "Kidnapping the Lorax"